Iraq

A New York Times feature recently highlighted the potential and the controversy of the plumpy'nut foods that fight child malnutrition. What cannot be forgotten amidst the debate is the number of malnourished children who need this food--now. (..) School feeding programs across the globe are facing big cuts. Even in Iraq, a country very much in the U.S. spotlight, WFP school feeding for Iraqi children was recently cut because of low funding.

The World Food Program is employing more than 11,000 of the most vulnerable people in Iraq in a cash-for-work program aimed at helping them get enough food to eat. This is an expansion of a pilot scheme WFP started in the Diyala and Baghdad governorates earlier this year.

At the end of August, we will see a U.S. withdrawal of troops from Iraq. But there is another withdrawal already under way in Iraq: humanitarian aid. Low funding has forced the UN WFP to significantly cut programs that benefit Iraqi school children and malnourished children under the age of five. Caroline Legros, a WFP officer in Iraq says, "The plan of reaching 1.76 million beneficiaries (960,000 primary school children and 800,000 pregnant/nursing women, malnourished children under 5, and their families) has been revised to just under 300,000 beneficiaries in total.”

A lack of funds from international donors in 2010 has hindered UN and NGO assistance programmes for the most vulnerable Iraqis, leaving many of the country’s pressing humanitarian needs unaddressed, says a UN mid-year review report. (..) Edward Kallon, the World Food Programme representative for Iraq, explained that because of the shortfall in IHAP funding “food distributions to 800,000 pregnant and nursing women and malnourished children have had to be suspended. Food distribution to 960,000 school-going children has also been suspended."

Lack of donor funding has forced the United Nations to cut back on its humanitarian efforts in Iraq, with its food aid agency halting distributions to hundreds of thousands of women and children in the conflict-ridden country. (..) The halt in food aid will affect some 800,000 pregnant and nursing women and malnourished children, as well as up to 960,000 schoolchildren, according to Edward Kallon, the U.N. World Food Program's representative for Iraq.

The Syrian government and the UN World Food Program(WFP) on Monday signed a memo of understanding for the Emergency Project No. 200040 on providing assistances to the displaced Iraqis in Syria with a USD 32 million estimated value. (..) The WFP Resident Representative in Damascus, Muhannad Hadi, hailed the Syrian government efforts for providing the displaced Iraqis with requirements , embracing them and granting them the same privileges of the Syrian citizens.

Iraqi children born in the most violent areas are shorter than those born in other parts of the country, UK researchers have found. The team looked at data from Iraq's central statistics office and said under-fives from these areas were on average 0.8cm (0.3in) shorter. Low height can be linked to poor diet and sanitation. The University of London work is being presented at the Royal Economic Society annual conference.

The United Nations and local authorities in northern Iraq are providing food, hygiene kits, kerosene and other humanitarian aid to hundreds of Christian families who fled their homes in the city of Mosul following targeted intimidation and violence.(..)The WFP, through its partner Islamic Relief, distributed 50 kilograms of wheat flour per family to 638 families in different locations in Ninewa governorate, which includes Mosul – Iraq’s second largest city

Iraqis have welcomed a new partnership between the Ministry of Trade and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) to improve the state-run food aid system, which has been crumbling since the US-led invasion in 2003 because of insecurity, poor management and corruption.